Farm Internship Reflections

It definitely crept up on me, but Monday was my last day out on the Cornercopia Student Organic Farm as an intern. It was definitely a bittersweet day because I'm really going to miss working there. I have learned so much and I'm so thankful I was given the opportunity to work their this growing season.

Panoramic view of a storm rolling away from the farm.

There have been so many parts about this internship that I have loved, it's hard to list all of them. I really enjoyed working with the other interns, many of which come from different majors and backgrounds. It made the job interesting when I got to hear about the different perspectives on food and farming that everyone had. My boss has been incredible in teaching me a lot about what it takes to run a farm. She also was super understanding when I and the other interns would goof up on something (like putting tomatoes in the cold cooler or picking the wrong leafy green vegetable) which made our mistakes much more of a learning opportunity than something to be ashamed of. I have learned so much from her and I really hope that, eventually, I will know as much about plants, organic farming and organic food as she does.

All of us goofy interns and our boss, Courtney.

But more than anything I have learned the importance of food and the importance of appreciating where our food comes from. I can eat a tomato any day I want and not even think about it, but after seeding, planting, weeding, and harvesting the tomatoes I ate this summer, something about the fruit just tastes different and better. Maybe it's the emotional connection to the food, maybe it's simply because it's organic, but knowing more about your food definitely makes it more special.

Tomato picking party!

I now also hugely appreciate those that work with food as their profession who make it a point to use local and organic food. University Dining Service chefs and the chef at our on-campus restaurant Campus Club, have been huge supporters of the student organic farm and buy large amounts of our produce to feed to their customers. I specifically remember hearing from the head chef at Campus Club who talked about how a carrot soup she makes just doesn't taste the same unless the carrots she uses are organic. The flavor just isn't there with conventional carrots. I'm also very glad that we are a produce source for the food eaten by students on our campus. As the University of Minnesota works toward a more sustainable future, I think that food has a huge role to play in that shift. I'm hoping that buying produce from us is just the beginning of the U starting to source it's food more locally.

Coupon for lunch provided by University Dining Services.

And, of course, I have learned that food certainly creates community, whether that be here at the University or with other groups in Twin Cities area. Seeing how good food makes people happy was another thing I loved about this job. I hope that I can contribute to these food communities and continue connecting people to good food even more in the future with the knowledge that I gained at Cornercopia. 

 

Mystery Hawk on Campus: Solved

So as well as being a gardener, my recent trip to Yellowstone brought back my love of birding that I had so much as a kid. I used to sit by sliding glass door that led out to the patio with the bird feeders back home and count chickadees, nuthatches and juncos in the snowy bittersweet vines. It can be a little difficult being an active birdwatcher while taking college courses and living in a house with nowhere to hang a birdfeeder.
But after seeing mountain bluebirds, harlequin ducks and all manner of stunning birds on the trip out west, my interest was peaked again.

eBird, a bird reporting website from Cornell University is my favorite birding tool because it compiles my "life list" of birds for me and I can add notes about where/when I saw them, age, sex, details about what they were doing, etc. It's a pretty neat tool if you're at all into birding. And they use the data to keep tabs on bird populations, so everyone benefits.

Yesterday I was over on the UMN East Bank campus, talking with a friend while she stood waiting for a bus. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a large bird swoop up into one of the ash trees outside of Folwell Hall and immediately got excited. It's not too often that I get a close look at a raptor that's stationary instead of soaring overhead.

Peeking up through the branches, I found my bird.

I'm not the best bird identifier out there so I knew it was a hawk, but not what kind. Going home, my internet search brought me to the conclusion that it was a Broad-Winged Hawk...only to be told to day by a kind passerby on Google+ (who had seen the picture I put up) that it was actually a juvenile Cooper's Hawk. Apparently there's a successful nest on campus with 5-6 young birds that have been flying around campus.

Bird Identification 1-Abby 0.

But that's what I like about birding. If you don't know what bird you saw, chances are there's a nice birder out there who will let you know what it was.

Farming!!

Hello everyone!
I've been a bit quieter than I'd like to be recently as I've started settling in to my new job as a Marketing Intern at Cornercopia Student Organic Farm on the University of Minnesota campus. I'm LOVING this job. It's more hard work than I've probably ever done for a job, but it's incredibly enjoyable and my co-workers are fantastic and fun to work with. We've been going absolutely crazy with planting anything and everything lately. We just got 910 tomato plants (80 varieties!) in the ground at the beginning of the week, as well as sweet peppers, hot peppers, basil, squash, watermelon and potatoes.

That's a lot of tomatoes!!

The farm itself has been around since 2004 and has been certified organic for most of the time that it's been around. The farm partially serves as a learning tool so students like me can work as interns, do research and take classes that relate to an organic farm and have a real-life model for their studies. I took the Organic Farm Class this past semester so our lab section did a lot of the seeding for the farm. The farm also sells it's produce to the University community. The University Dining Service buys a lot of our produce for catered events and their dining halls on campus. The Campus Club, a restaurant located in the top floor of our student union, also buys our produce and does pretty awesome things with it. They're really committed to using local and organic produce (their chef insists it makes everything taste better and I totally agree).

My job specifically is to A) work as a general farm intern (planting, weeding, harvesting, etc) and B) to work as one of the two marketing interns that head up farmers market stands that sell produce on both the Minneapolis campus and St. Paul campus portions of the UMN-Twin Cities campus. Our market stands officially start up after July 4th and I'm so excited to start that portion of my internship. The other great part about being an intern is the 10ft by 12ft plot that I have to do whatever I want with. Currently, it only has two brassicas and three sweet pepper plants in it, but eventually it'll have zuchetta, zucchini, 8 different varieties of tomatoes, salad greens and possibly bean plants as well. I'll have more on that later.

The plot is looking a bit barren at the moment but that'll change within a week or so!

In the meantime, if you want to look in on what the farm is up to, you can find them on Facebook here or follow their blog here.